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With help from Arthur Allen (@ArthurAllen202) and David Pittman (@David_Pittman)

INPATIENT HOSPITAL PAYMENT RULE INVOLVES MEANINGFUL USE: CMS continued its work to align reporting and submission timelines for the Medicare meaningful use program and the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting program, in a final hospital payment rule released Monday. The agency stopped short of requiring quarterly reports of clinical quality measures, saying aggregate-level data reporting was not feasible in 2015. “For FY 2015, eligible hospitals and [critical access hospitals] will be able to electronically submit, using a method similar to the 2012 and 2013 EHR Incentive Program electronic reporting pilot for eligible hospitals and CAHs [Critical Access Hospitals], which used QRDA-I (patient-level data),” the final rule stated. CMS also asks for feedback on how long-term care hospitals use EHRs and how they would benefit from the creation of clinical quality measures using EHRs.

The American Hospital Association said Monday that it was “very disappointed” in the disproportionate share hospital payment cut in CMS' final pay rule. The association said it was unclear how CMS calculated the Obamacare-mandated reduction, POLITICO Pulse reported last night.

Welcome to Tuesday morning eHealth, and welcome again to the hazy days of August. Don’t forget we still need your tips and ideas in these lazy times when Congress is in recess and our friends over at the ONC and HHS are likely on vacation — ping us at agold@politico.com. Connect with us on Twitter @POLITICOPro; @Morning_eHealth.

mHealth lawmaker of the day: Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. I caught up with him yesterday while he was back in home district, driving around to prep for Michigan’s primaries today--“walking less than usual, but soon will go door to door and make up some steps,” he said. Upton got a Nike FuelBand for his birthday and loves it. He aims to get 10,000 steps a day, though his staffer Alexa Marrero recently moved to Capitol Hill and is beating him badly on the step count every day now, walking to the Capitol for work instead of driving from where she used to live near Reagan National Airport. “She just kills me on the total,” Upton said. “It’s not fair. It’s a great reminder to stay active.”

Upton said that he ran into White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, going for a walk downtown flanked by Secret Service agents. The two stopped to check on McDonough’s steps and McDonough “couldn’t believe how many more steps he had,” Upton said — but he didn’t hesitate to poke fun at how hard it was to read McDonough’s non-Fuelband pedometer in the afternoon sun. I’m hearing that speaker John Boehner has a Jawbone…anybody want to connect me with him?

OIG: ONC’S SECURITY STANDARDS FOR EHRS LACKING: Certification standards for electronic health records may not adequately protect patients’ health information from cyberattacks, according to a government watchdog report Monday. The HHS Inspector General examined ONC’s oversight of testing and certification bodies and found several security issues, including those related to password complexity and user privilege changes. “These vulnerabilities could allow hackers to penetrate EHR systems, thereby compromising the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of patient information stored in and transmitted by a certified EHR,” the report stated. Furthermore, the IG found fault with the testing requirements of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which the IG said “were not sufficient to ensure that EHRs would adequately secure and protect patient health information.”
In written comments to the IG, ONC said it no longer uses the Authorized Certification and Testing Bodies the IG found fault with. It added that its 2014 EHR certification criteria strengthens security and privacy features. The IG disagreed, saying ONC’s 2014 criteria failed to require multifactor authentication. The IG also said ONC needs the ability to decertify products if there are data breaches.

CONGRESS WANTS FCC TO ADDRESS RURAL BROADBAND PROGRAM: Nine members of Congress have written to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, expressing concern over a commission program that subsidizes broadband coverage for rural health care providers. The lawmakers fear the FCC’s definition of non-profit hospitals in its Healthcare Connect Fund program is too narrow, and excludes some who could benefit from the $400 million a year program. In the letter posted late Friday, they say it could exclude hospitals that operate in multiple locations. The Healthcare Connect Fund provides a 65 percent subsidy for rural health providers to adopt broadband networks. Rural health advocates think that hospitals will build smaller networks or none at all without the additional help. “The exclusion of these providers undermines the program’s desired objective of encouraging the creation of state and regional broadband health care networks comprised of providers that span the continuum of care from rural health clinics to urban specialists’ practices,” the lawmakers wrote. A group of senators is expected to write a similar letter this week as well.

ONC REVEALS NEW POLICY COMMITTEE LINEUP: The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Monday announced its new Health IT Policy and Standards committees. The offices were streamlined earlier this summer to better help the agency reach its goals. “We have been taking steps to make sure [the group’s work] aligns with our strategic direction and our policy priorities,” Jodi Daniel, director of the office of policy and planning at ONC, writes in a blog post. New groups include a JASON Task Force and an interoperability and health information exchange governance subgroup. The whole list can be seen here.

FDA RELEASES GUIDANCE ON HOME USE MEDICAL DEVICES: The Food and Drug Administration Monday put out guidance intended to help manufacturers of home health devices comply with safety standards. Specifically, these devices are used in non-clinical environments, home and otherwise, by users who are not doctors. The guidelines aim to help developers with device design, development and risk minimization. The guidance will focus on things like insulin injectors, home oxygen and some sophisticated and high risk medical products used in the home, such as hospital beds for home use, Bradley Merrill Thompson, an attorney representing the mHealth Regulatory Coalition, told POLITICO. For example, a developer would have to consider the weight of the hospital bed for home use and whether a user’s floors were reinforced. “The design principles for simplicity and so forth would apply equally to mHealth … It would apply to mHealth products, but only certain aspects of the guidance will. It covers a much broader range of technologies,” Thompson said. Stay tuned for a longer story on more industry reaction to this guidance later today.

WHAT WE'RE CLICKING

Two California insurers will team up to create one of the country’s largest information exchanges, with data on about 9 million members, The Wall Street Journal reports: http://on.wsj.com/1xZYsEg